Figure 1.--This girls' smock utilizes a gathering tecnique at the waistline called "empiècement plissé". It was a technique only used on girls' smocks. Note that this smock also used a differnt colored material for detailing.

One technique used for smocks were "empiècement plissé", a gathering technique. The material was gathered at the waisline. We are not sure when this technique was first employed. We only have informatioin dated from the 1950s, but believed this gathering technique was employed earlier. We do not know how common this was for girls' smocks. The "empiècement plissé" was only used for girls' smocks, never for boys' smocks. It also was used for garments worn by boys like shirts and rompers, but never for boys' smocks.